Taking a leap to close the gap: Early academic success of low-income Latino/a children facing multiple risks

The achievement gap is a persisting problem faced by schools nationwide. Although student achievement is on the rise overall, the achievement gap between minority/disadvantaged students and those of their White/advantaged peers continues to persist. What is even more discouraging is that this gap is evidenced on the first day children enter Kindergarten (Rumberger & Arrellano, 2007). Researchers have identified both risk and promotive factors contributing to school readiness. This study contributes to resilience and school readiness research by highlighting familial promotive factors that contribute to early academic success. This mixed-methods study investigated which factors contributed most strongly to the academic success of Latino/a students at the end of the Kindergarten school year, by utilizing and creating cumulative risk and cumulative promotive indices. The promotive index significantly predicted the children's academic outcomes, yielding higher early literacy scores at the end of the year. The risk index did not, however, significantly predict students' scores. The risk index was used to identify students who had multiple risks, but despite these risks were able to improve their academic trajectories by the end of the school year. Qualitative interviews were conducted with the parents of these children. Common familial factors that contributed to early academic resilience among these families were highlighted. These themes included: parent involvement at school, strong emphasis on family unity, parent acknowledgement of the child's positive attributes, fostering autonomy, and an open and explanatory style of communication. Clinical and research implications of these findings are discussed.